Adriana Perez

Professor Arthur
ANT 2000.601
April 4, 2012
Why Race is Not a Biological Fact
What is the Holocaust? The Holocaust was a German attempt to create an
Aryan or perfect and superior race by eliminating anyone who did not match their ideal
view of perfection (tall with blonde hair and blue eyes). Although the Nazis main focus
was on the Jewish community, there were also other races that were persecuted during
the Holocaust. For example, the Roma, or Gypsies, the homosexuals, some Slavic people
such as the Poles, and Jehovahs Witnesss were all persecuted because they were not in
accordance with the Aryan master race.
The Nazis did not view the Jews as a religious group but instead as a race that
weakened other races because they lived off of them. Racism is acts of discrimination
and aggression towards a group of people, generally a minority group. Racism was, and
still is, very predominant throughout the world. One of the biggest cases of racism today
is Blacks against Whites. An example of a Black and White controversy is the Martin-
Zimmerman case. A young man by the name of Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by
the neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman. If it were not for the fact that Trayvon
was Black and George was White this case would probably have not gotten as much
publicity as it has. I believe that although racism causes much disturbance in the United
States and across the world, it is never going to disappear.
When speaking of racism, in terms of the Holocaust, I automatically think of
Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a very elaborate speaker and thus during Germanys time
of need won the hearts of the people. He expressed his anti-Semitic views to the Nazis
and they became one of the largest political parties. Adolf Hitler had an idea of a
perfect race and set out to create this race by eliminating any and everyone who did not
match his criteria. Hitler was very racist towards the Jews simply because of their social
position. Many of the Jewish people were wealthy and ran successful businesses in the
early 1900s. Hitler saw this as a threat to the Germans due to the depression they were
in, caused by World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. At the beginning, Hitler decided
to have different races wear different colored triangle patches on their clothes so that they
could be easily identified. There was a great deal of racism and discrimination against
these groups (Roma, homosexuals, Poles, and Jehovahs Witnesss). One of the main
turning points of the Holocaust was Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass. On this
night the Germans broke the windows of Jewish owned businesses and synagogues and
vandalized their property. It was this event that sparked the violence and the 4 years of
Jewish execution.
When I visited the Florida Holocaust Museum in downtown St. Petersburg I
found many interesting artifacts that are evidence of the Holocaust. The one artifact that
I found to be the most interesting was the boxcar. To think that people were transported
in such a cruel manner is truly devastating. The Nazis took about 120 people and packed
them into these cars with no food, water, or sanitation. Many people became ill due to
the poor life conditions that were forced upon them. A very precious item found when
pressure cleaning the boxcar was a childs ring. In my eyes that ring represents the
heartless manner of the Nazis.
A few more items I found at the museum were a Mauser Model 98 8mm bolt-
action rifle, armbands worn by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, rail spikes from the camp in
Auschwitz Birkenau, and personal items such as shoes, silverware and scissors.
Although the Nazis used gas chambers to murder the Jews, the Mauser Model 98 rifle
shown in the museum, along with many others, was used to murder many of the Jews as
well. The armbands worn in the Warsaw Ghetto represented status. Each ghetto was
very similar to a small community. They even had their own currency. The rail spikes
from the camp in Auschwitz Birkenau represent the seclusion of Jews from the Germans.
The boundaries of the camps and ghettos were all fenced off. One very emotion
photograph I saw at the museum was that of a German child speaking to a Jewish child
on the opposite side of the fence. At that time it was prohibited for Germans to socialize
with Jews.
Hand-in-hand with the Holocaust come Kony and Darfur. These are two modern
cases of genocide still occurring today. Genocide is the intentional destruction of a group
of people. Those groups of people could be religious, racial, ethnical, or even national.
In the Kony case a man named Joseph Kony of Uganda has been accused of kidnapping
young children and forcing the females to become sex slave and the males to become
assassins. Konys Christian movement has been said to have terrorized villagers in at
least four countries in central Africa for nearly 20 years, killing tens of thousands of
people, burning down huts and hacking off lips. (The New York Times) Joseph Kony
has been wanted since 2005 for all the atrocities he has bestowed upon central Africa.
The United States has attempted to aid central Africa since the Bush presidency but has
not had much luck. It was not until Jason Russells video Kony 2012 that this event
was presented to the public through a video that generated hundreds of thousands of
dollars in donations in effort to stop Joseph Kony.
Similar to the Holocaust and the Kony genocide is the war in Darfur. Darfur is a
region in Sudan that is generally the size of Texas. The Janjaweed, an Arab militia, is
murdering and displacing the farmers and other people of Darfur. About 400,000 people
have been murdered and about 2,500,000 people have been displaced. This mass
genocide has been occurring since 2003. The United States has tried to intervene but
their efforts backfired and the violence increased in 2006.
Upon completing this assignment I was able to grasp a better understanding of
how race is socially constructed instead of biologically constructed. Through the
holocaust I was able to see that it was not only the Jews who were persecuted, it was
anyone who was not categorized as perfect to the Germans. The holocaust was not
entirely about wiping out the Jewish race. Due to their high social status they posed as a
threat to the Germans in their time of need and so the Germans acted upon them with
hostility and violence. Racism played a big role in the 1900s as it does today. The
Martin-Zimmerman case is a perfect example of a controversy about race. Had both
Martin and Zimmerman been either white or black this case would not have been
broadcasted nationwide. I believe that race plays different roles in each case of genocide.
When it comes to Kony and Darfur I do not think race is as significant as it was for the
Holocaust.
Works Cited
Beaubien, J.
2012 Joseph Kony. The New York Times. [Online]. Available:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/joseph_kony/index.html
Accessed: April 3, 2012

Anonymous
Genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Genocide Intervention Network. [Online]. Available:
http://www.darfurscores.org/darfur Accessed: April 3, 2012